From the Ashes
by theCarny
Summary: You can't break what you don't have. Yet his was very broken indeed.


_Cleaning up the harddrive and noticed this. Very, very old, but I sorta liked it so revised it a little. Not my best writing and it originally was supposed to be part of a bigger story that I've long since forgotten, but eh, it's kinda fun._

* * *

It was a pitch black sea of calm fear, and its only denizen remained suspended in its deep nothing.

There was pain. Unrecognizable pangs in the chest that coursed through every limb, setting each nerve ablaze, recoiling muscles into one another like some cursed electrode. Surrounding, there was something that must have been fire, though it never glowed, only burned.

_Enough already. I'm done. Just...let me go._

No answer to the plea. Only continuation. A foggy meld of memories tried to pour by, as thick and opaque as molasses, a mess of images and sounds. Squirming provided no escape. Speaking provided no sound. Not a scream, not even a breath. After all, there was none left to give.

Death had drawn his scythe hours, days, who knows how long ago...but why had it taken him so long to finish the job? Why wasn't it just a brief instant of darkness and nothing more, the brief snuffing of a candle? Why did the wick keep re-lighting when the ignition wasn't there?

_Did you hear me or not? I want it to end. I want to...I want to die._

The pain intensified, but it was unlike any pain from before. It did not scar or bleed, but it hurt, like a cramp in the ribs.

It wasn't emotion. That was impossible. We all know that...

Something dripped by eyes that didn't know if they were open or closed.

Blood? Can you bleed if you're dead?

_**You cannot.**_

The voice suddenly resonated from everywhere. It was at once away, and close, around and inside, hardly a sound but a physical sensation.

_Where the heck did you come from?_

**I have been here all the while, you just have not taken notice.**

_Stop talking and circles and get to the point; kill me!_

**Strange. It isn't like you to be broken.**

_Oh yeah? And you would know this, huh?_

**You say yourself that you do not have a heart. But you cannot break what you do not have.**

_..._

Silence. Again. The voice that was both a whisper and a roar, the bass and the soprano, faded as quick as it came. Yet, slowly, each pang of chest pain regained its own name.

_What's...what is this? What's happening to me?_

Confusion. Anger. Fear.

**All in good time, friend.**

Panic.

_What time? There is no time! I died! I...I remember it. I...sacrificed myself. I should even be hearing you...this doesn't make _sense_!_

The darkness played. Was it trying to seduce, to draw into its blank infinity? Or take by force?

**You and I know you've done a lot of things you should not have...but, in the end, you have righted them. Well, most of them...**

_Most? What the hell else is left?_

Patience provided no response for the longest while, and when it came it answered no questions.

**Can you see it?**

_See what? There's nothing in here but--_

Silent screaming erupted from the void as the mind was racked with more pain than the chest. The voice screamed things indistinguishably clear.

**Don't succumb. Feel it, in your heart...**

_I don't _have_ a heart!_

**If you didn't, you wouldn't be somebody.**

_But I'm not! I'm a Nobody, and whoever the Hell YOU are, you should know that._

**Nobodies can always be somebodies.**

They can't. They can't and they won't. That's what They always said...

**Have you heard the story of the phoenix?**

_Yeah. Big flaming bird, lives forever but then dies for some reason by setting itself on fire._

**Ah, but it is always reborn, if its song sings true...the music of the heart...**

_What? What does this have to do--_

**You are a phoenix.**

Time stopped and eyes shot open, a greeting to a stab in the chest that was not the pain of dying or the chorus of emotions. It was the pain of something--cool and long, rigid with power--tearing through clothing and flesh, but damaging neither, and into the empty space in a soul. It twisted. More silent screaming. Then there was fire, only gone from the scorch of an oven to the center of the sun. It was everywhere, dancing and shimmering like the flame on the wick of a candle, only infinitely larger. Yet, there was no pain, only a strange sensation that seemed lost in this world of nothing.

_**Look.**_

A white ball hung in the air above. The distance could not be gauged in inches nor miles, but it was still calling, serenading to him.

Him.

Not it, them, HIM.

Suddenly once more he could feel himself, and the sudden sensation electrified his body with immeasurable power. He reached to the light, for the first time seeing the glow against his own bare arm.

His chest refilled with something he didn't know he lacked.

He loved it.

_Loved_ it.

The fire continued to stretch up, licking at the darkness that stood adamantly in his way.

**Fly towards it. You know you can.**

And he did. Forcing himself forwards with some unknown power, he darted at it, like a comet in outer space, his body burning with a fire started internally. He was so close now. Only a finger's-length away...

Suddenly he heard the voice again, and he could distinguish it. He smirked.

_**If you have a dream, don't wait. Act. One of life's little rules. Got it memorized?**_

The light engulfed him, the sound of his voice ringing in his ears. Everything exploded in a fiery brilliance of colour and pain. As it consumed him, he reached up to wipe the blood, from earlier, from his face.

But it wasn't blood...

Abruptly, the brilliance faded into nothing.

But that nothing was about to become something.

Somewhere, worlds apart, where adventures begin and come to an end, a small beach burst into flame. It was only for an instant, and when it receded, there was no burns to tell the tale. No trees stood scorched or water boiled, and no one was around in its tranquility to witness the momentary spectacle. The bystanders were only the breeze and the sunset sky.

On the island where adventures began and ended, one story once thought to have come to a close was only about to begin once more.


End file.
